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The Making of Post-war Canada

As Canada enters the twenty-first century, the post-war baby-boomers are quickly approaching middle age. This generation, born and raised after the end of the Second World War, has witnessed the consolidation of corporate capitalism, the expansion of the wage labour market, and therestructuring of industries and occupations. Social changes are also conspicuous: women's entry into the paid labour market, a decline in the Canadian fertility rate and family size, the rise of the Canadian welfare state, the aging of the Canadian population, increased immigration to Canada, andthe emergence of collective claims in Canadian society. Recognition of such changes as they unfold is often elusive, especially for those accustomed to a continuing social order's apparently natural features. The Making of Post-War Canada documents major changes in post-war Canadian society, and provides theoretical coherence to what appears to behaphazard and disjointed social trends. Transformation of the economic order began with the growth of advanced capitalism and its streamlining of production, consolidation of ownership, and intensified wage labour markets. Understanding this transformation provides a basis for understanding othersocial and demographic changes which have occurred in Canadian society.